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by Jean Calder

The 1993 racist murder of Black London teenager Stephen Lawrence was followed by a bungled police investigation. This led to a high profile campaign by the Lawrence family and a public inquiry by Sir William Macpherson in 1998. What emerged was that police investigating the murder had stereotyped the young Black victim, failed to gather evidence and proceeded on the assumption that he or his companion must have acted improperly or illegally. The police could or would not recognise racist assault. Macpherson’s eventual finding that the Metropolitan Police was “institutionally racist” sent a depth-charge through British policing and led to changes in national policing policies and practice.

Over the years there have been improvements in police attitudes to race and racist crime. Hate-crime laws have provided some protection to minority ethnic groups as well as several other groups subject to discrimination – and have enforced a change of attitudes.

However, one group of people hate crime legislation does not protect, despite the discrimination and targeted violence they face, is women. As a consequence, there is little recognition of the need to address institutional sexism within the police and the way in which it may impact upon the investigation of crimes targeted at women. The tragic death of Shana Grice provides a stark example.

Shana Grice, a white nineteen-year-old living in Portslade, on the outskirts of Brighton & Hove, was murdered on 25th August 2016. She had had a brief relationship with Michael Lane, a mechanic and former work colleague. He was physically larger and heavier than Shana and, at 27, a lot older. When she rejected him, he harassed and stalked her mercilessly. When it became clear he would not be able to bully her back into a relationship, he slit her throat, disabled fire alarms in her flat and set light to her body. Immediately after he killed her, he stole cash from her bank account and then went to check his lottery ticket. He had told a friend “She’ll pay for what she’s done.”

Shana was a courageous young woman who had reported Lane’s behaviour to family, friends and an employer – and had repeatedly complained to the police, at least five times in the last seven months of her life. The police failed either to take her seriously or to protect her. In fact, when Shana reported Lane had assaulted her by pulling her hair and trying to grab her phone, the police fined her, blaming her for wasting police time and “making a false report”. No action was taken against Lane.

Thereafter Lane followed Shana, fitted a tracker on her car, publicly humiliated her, slashed her tyres, and intimidated her with anonymous calls. In the month before he killed her, Lane stole her keys and broke into her bedroom to watch her sleep. He admitted what he had done, but instead of charging him, the police issued a Caution. The next day Shana reported several calls from a withheld number, including one with heavy breathing, but the police told her there were no further lines of inquiry and the case would be left on file. Two days later she told the police Lane had followed her, but the police deemed the incident “low risk” – despite it being well known that the most dangerous time for an abused woman is when she flees a relationship.

The jury took just two hours and twenty minutes to find Lane guilty. Sentencing him to Life in prison with a minimum of 25 years, Judge Nicholas Green said he had no doubt the killing was premeditated and carried out in revenge. He went on to severely criticise Sussex Police, saying of Shana “..tragically when she sought help from the police she received none.” In a fascinating echo of the Macpherson report, he said that the police had “stereotyped” Shana Grice, when she reported Lane, treating her as a “wrongdoer” and Michael Lane as a “victim”.

The Judge stated “there was seemingly no appreciation on the part of those investigating that a young woman in a sexual relationship with a man could at one and the same time be vulnerable and at risk of serious harm.” He commented that the police’s position had had three “potentially serious consequences”, namely: that the police treated all further complaints with “scepticism”; that Shana Grice was reluctant to report further incidents; and that Lane believed it “most unlikely” that the police would do anything to stop him if he continued.

Shana’s grieving mother Sharon Grice said: “We firmly believe her murder could have been avoided if her fears had been taken seriously by police. Michael Lane had been harassing, stalking and pressurising her for over a year. Her life became a nightmare which we believe had affected her mental and physical health.”

There will be the usual investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). It may well add to the long list of IPCC reports highlighting police failures in respect of stalking and domestic homicide. It is to the credit of Bernie O’Reilly, Deputy Chief Constable of Sussex Police, that he has already apologised to the family. However, there is no reason why the public should take on trust his assurance that “We have thoroughly reviewed all aspects of how we deal with cases of stalking and harassment and we have now taken on the learning and our approach is more robust.” Police Commissioner, Katy Bourne’s call for a full review of all stalking cases in Sussex is therefore necessary and welcome. However, it is not enough.

This is not just an issue about stalking – or sexual assault, domestic homicide, or any other of the crimes of which women are the usual victims – but about police attitudes to women. The question to be addressed is to what extent sexist prejudice within Sussex Police force may have protected the abuser and exposed his victim to further attack.

Lane terrorised and then murdered Shana, finally desecrating her body by fire. His offences were rooted in sexism, revealing an obsessive desire for control over this very young woman and a deadly refusal to accept rejection. He lied repeatedly, persuading the police that he was not an abuser, but the victim of an unfaithful girlfriend who made malicious and false allegations against him. It is what some weary domestic violence workers call the “slag defence”, where a male perpetrator avoids detection, a finding of guilt or an adequate sentence, by appealing to prejudices about women. Defence lawyers use it in homicide trials, where the reputations of dead women are regularly trashed, to the immense distress of their loved ones.

Sussex Police do need to get their policies and procedures right, but unless they confront the sexism and prejudice within their force, amongst male and female officers alike, poor practice will continue – and there will be many more victims.

I hope that Shana Grice’s courageous family will call for a public inquiry into her death and the role that institutional sexism and associated neglect may have played in it.

There has been an increase in sexual offences against women.

The Crown Prosecution Service’s Violence Against Women and Girls report, published in September 2016, has shown that convictions for rape, domestic abuse, sexual offences and child abuse have reached record levels.

The conviction rate for rape cases rose to 57.9 per cent of the 4,653 cases.

In total 11,995 defendants were prosecuted in 2015-16 for sexual offences other than rape, up from 9,789 the year before. The figure has steadily increased since 2012, but this is the steepest increase yet. Sexual offences range from non-consensual sexual touching to serious sexual assault.

The vast majority of defendants were men, with women accounting for just 2.7 per cent, and of those prosecuted 78 per cent were convicted.

There were 206 prosecutions for revenge pornography, after new laws to tackle the crime were introduced in April 2015. Disclosing private sexual images without consent carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions said the internet had contributed to the overall rise and had enabled other offences, with defendants relying on “tactics such as GPS tracking and monitoring phone or email messages” to control or coerce victims. She said “The use of the internet, social media and other forms of technology to humiliate, control and threaten individuals is rising”.

Note: This report was drawn from a report in the Daily Telegraph.

FOD Comment: FOD notes that despite improved conviction levels for rape and sexual offences, the CPS receives little credit, but instead is repeatedly attacked by politicians and the media when cases fail. Sometimes it is alleged that cases have been badly investigated or prosecuted, but more usually the implication is that police and CPS lawyers have accepted the word of a woman making a ‘false allegation’. FOD notes that when figures are published which suggest high levels of sexual violence against women and horrifying levels of male violence, politicians and media pundits are almost always silent. It troubles us that those that do comment, so readily focus on on-line abuse, as if the problem is technology rather than sexism and male violence. The debate we should be having is about how to keep girls and women safe while challenging and changing male behaviour.

Died 4th August 2014

Palmira Silva (82) has died, apparently by being beheaded, in the garden of a house in Edmonton, north London. Officers found her collapsed in a back garden and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and is in custody. It is unknown at this stage whether he was known to Ms Silva.

The man is in hospital being treated for injuries suffered during arrest. A Taser was used during the arrest and a firearms officer is believed to have suffered a broken wrist.

Police said they were initially called to reports of a man armed with a knife and eyewitnesses said he had attacked an animal, possibly a cat or a dog. There were also reports that a machete had been used.

Detectives were anxious to reassure the public that there was no suggestion the killing had a “terrorist motive”.

Detective Chief Inspector John Sandlin said: “I can understand why this may cause people concern, however we are confident that we are not looking for anyone else at this stage.
Whilst it is too early to speculate on what the motive behind this attack was I am confident, based on the information currently available to me, that it is not terrorist related.”

The case is being investigated by Scotland Yard’s Homicide Command and the Independent Police Complaints Commission has also been informed of the incident.

Note: This report was drawn from a report in the BBC.

FOD Comment: FOD notes that when journalists have been beheaded abroad it has dominated the news and political debate. However, when women are beheaded in domestic settings, it generally doesn’t make headlines. Police and commentators have suggested we ought to be relieved that the death of Palmira Silva appears not to be”terrorist related”. In fact, of course, such killings are acts of terrorism. Male journalists like Sarfraz Manzoor may tweet that they feel “relief”. We do not.

Died 24th July 2013

Jane Wiggett (57) was beaten and strangled to death at her home in Mendip Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on 24th July 2013.

In August 2014, Daniel Spencer (59), her former husband, of Prestbury Road, Cheltenham, was convicted of her murder. He was jailed for life and will serve a minimum of 16 years.

Ms Wiggett remained married to Spencer for 30 years, during which she twice reported him to the police for grabbing her by the throat. She divorced him in 2005. She weighed just seven-and-a-half stone.

After killing Ms Wiggett, Spencer placed her body inside her bed, with pillows and blankets tucked around her, before telling friends and family she had gone on holiday. Her body was discovered three weeks later.

A post-mortem examination found Ms Wiggett had been hit before her death by strangulation. Traces of Spencer’s blood were discovered under her fingernails.

Concerns began to grow when Ms Wiggett failed to turn up for appointments and a search party of friends and relatives gained entry to her home two days later. They looked round the property, but did not spot the body as it had been hidden beneath the “carefully” made bed.

Spencer told Ms Wiggett’s relatives that she was on holiday in Penzance, Cornwall and in contact with him by phone. However, Ms Wiggett was reported missing to police on 15th August and officers discovered her body the following morning.

Police contacted Spencer, who promised to hand himself in but actually attempted to flee the country. He fled north before staying at a hotel in Birmingham airport under a false name. A member of staff at the hotel recognised him from a police appeal and called officers, who arrested him.

Spencer denied killing Ms Wiggett during his trial before Mr Justice Hamblen at Bristol Crown Court, but a unanimous jury convicted him of murder.

Prosecutor Richard Smith QC told the jury Spencer was a “jealous” and violent man, who repeatedly lied to cover up what he had done. Mr Smith said: “On Wednesday July 24 last year, this defendant visited his then ex-wife in her flat in Cheltenham,” Mr Smith said. “Something happened to anger him and upset him. There was something of a struggle. Jane Wiggett resisted, it seems, his attack upon her. But the defendant took her by the throat and this time it culminated in him taking her life. He put and left Jane’s body lying in her own bed, positioned on her back. Her face was covered with a pillow, her quilt was then carefully put over her as if to hide the fact that she was dead inside.”

On sentencing, the Judge said: “During the evening or night of the 24 July of last year her life was taken away from her. It was taken away by you, Daniel Spencer, her ex-husband. As the jury found you murdered her by strangulation. We do not know exactly what happened in Jane’s flat that night because you deprived Jane of her voice and you have chosen not to use yours by denying the crime and not giving evidence. You were bullying and controlling towards her.” He added, echoing something the prosecutor had said “ It appears that Jane couldn’t live with you but nor could she live without you. That was a mistake that was to prove fatal.”

Note: This report was drawn from reports in the Daily Mail and ITV.

FOD Comment:

We deplore comments by prosecutors and judges which seem to criticise victims’ judgement or imply or suggest that victims have any responsibility for their own deaths. Ms Wiggett died because her former husband was jealous and violent not because “ she ‘couldn’t live with’ her killer and ‘couldn’t live without him’. It is painful enough for loved ones when defence lawyers pillory victims, but when prosecutors suggest that they are foolish and judges echo this sentiment at sentencing, it is surely the final insult.